


slow

by crashstiel



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Before Tragedy, F/M, In Love, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 19:04:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13687878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crashstiel/pseuds/crashstiel
Summary: “You’re so beautiful,” she says, so quietly she herself barely heard it.“I’m supposed to say that to you,” he tells her, “I’m supposed to wax poetic about your lips, and your eyes, and about how I love you down to your very core, and even past that,” his thumb hooks through her belt loop.





	slow

After the world ended, there wasn’t much time to take a minute to slow things down. And no matter how adapted their group believed themselves to be, it wasn’t worth the risk to stop and observe. Like everything else, Glenn and Maggie’s love evolved quickly and drastically.

The prison was such a change in speed that everyone was a little dumbfounded at times [as much as they refused to admit it, a stoic bunch they were.] There was time to _read_ and _garden_ and fucking sit down and teach kids again, like the world was still okay, like the arrival of new people brought upturned lips instead of lifted guns. 

They all changed, and the little portions of time when they could ponder that came more often than before. Maggie knew that she wasn’t the same. Hershel knew it. Rick knew it. Sometimes, the stars looked different, too. From the inside of the guard towers, she rests her chin on the windowsill, glass impossibly close to her face, and rifle strewn across her lap, the Georgia forest eerily quiet in the night, dim and deep to her prying eyes. She turns when she hears Glenn stir. He moves to push up onto his elbows.

“Hey,” he says tiredly, voice thick with sleep, rubbing at his eyes.

“Hey,” she repeats, placing the gun rightside up against the wall, the heavy metal thudding dully, “why are you up, mister?” Her body turns to face him.

“The real question is why didn’t you wake me up?” he asks, eyebrows knitting together as he looks at the face of his watch. “Your shift was over two hours ago.” 

Maggie tucks her hair behind her ear, looking down at the threads pulling from her jeans. Glenn pulls the sleeping bag off, standing up and walking in front of her. His hands fall to the crown of her head, gentle, and he kisses the top of her head. “Get some sleep,” he advises.

His voice stills her heart, spreading warmth and calamity through her. She turns her face up, waiting, and Glenn presses a kiss to her lips. It’s chaste, but sweet and familiar. She wonders if she will ever get enough, if they spend eternity forever, if then she’ll finally be content. He pulls back, and she chases after him, moving to stay in his space. Both now standing, he pauses before he kisses her again. “What are you doing?” he asks, words breathed out into the little space between them.

Maggie hums, head tilted, a smile splitting across her face before Glenn mirrors it, too. Georgia outside them is forgotten. [It’s always best that way though.]

Her fingers ghost along his chest, before winding up and into his hair, soft. He carefully puts one hand on the nape of her neck, the other on her hip. This close, every detail of him is hers and hers alone. Her palms moves to brush along his jaw, stubble just barely surfacing on his porcelain skin. Even after all the violence, his skin doesn’t carry the same story as he’s lived.

“You’re so beautiful,” she says, so quietly she herself barely heard it.

“I’m supposed to say that to you,” he tells her, “I’m supposed to wax poetic about your lips, and your eyes, and about how I love you down to your very core, and even past that,” his thumb hooks through her belt loop.

“How can _I_ not when you are so perfect? Down to _your_ very core. Everything, Glenn,” her voice is so warm that maybe that’s what’s making his cheeks burn. She presses another kiss to his lips, to the corner of his mouth, along his jaw, down his neck.

“Maggie,” he says. She wonders if that sentence has an end.

“You make me so proud. How are you so good?” her fingertips press down right over his heart before skimming to his shoulders, “you are so good, Glenn, you are so good.”

“ _You’re _so good,” he retorts, “I’m so lucky. Maggie, I love you.”__

__“I love you. I love you. I love you.” She’s almost embarrassed at the prickling behind her eyes before she sees Glenn smile a sad/happy smile. Her hands are cupping his cheeks and it’s like she’s trying to give him her happiness through her lips, soft, sincere. His kindness is already an indescribable force that washes over her in waves. [She wants to be as good as him someday, and she wonders if the blood on her hands will ever prevent that.] Her world capsizes to Glenn and Glenn alone._ _

__The minutes pass, and eventually they both lay down, letting the pinpricks of starlight in the night sky drift into the guard tower. Maggie’s head is on Glenn’s chest, a weighted anchor to this singular moment._ _

__His touch, something as simple as his warmth beneath her, his fingertips on the valley of her hips is what slows her breathing, is what makes her heart decide to keep on beating. She knows he loves her as much as she loves him._ _

__It’s dangerous, but Maggie lets herself stop in that instant, and enjoy every single little detail._ _

__Eventually, the confession spills out into the open air._ _

__“I miss you even when you’re here,” she says, and even to her own ears it sounds like begging._ _

__“I’ll never leave you,” he says so softly, she wipes hastily at her eyes, staining her sleeves, “I’ll never leave you, Maggie.”_ _

__She nods, crowding her body closer, pressing a kiss to the base of his neck. The world is too cruel, it doesn’t deserve a man like him. The new world carved what it wanted out of people and left what wasn’t the survivalist. It was harsh, and malevolent, but there were flickers of people being like Glenn that gave her hope. Glenn losing his benevolence, his hope, his belief, any part of him would be what would tip her over into believing there was no future. Losing him would be the end._ _

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this for these lovebirds because it's valentines day 


End file.
